


writing songs of all our dreaming

by theseourbodies



Series: girl club rules [5]
Category: Numb3rs (TV)
Genre: F/F, Implied Relationships, Multi, Pre-Relationship, Team Dynamics, harold - Freeform, naps
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-13
Updated: 2019-12-13
Packaged: 2021-02-26 21:13:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21775414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theseourbodies/pseuds/theseourbodies
Summary: Nikki's less of a cat and more of a kitten really, all huge eyes and fluff and razor-sharp claws. She takes up so much room, normally, it feels wrong that her cheek on Liz's shoulder should feel so light, so barely-substantial.Liz lets Nikki sleep on her shoulder and maybe starts to realize some things.
Relationships: Colby Granger & David Sinclair, Don Eppes & The Team, Nikki Betancourt & Liz Warner, Nikki Betancourt/Liz Warner
Series: girl club rules [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/605251
Kudos: 1





	writing songs of all our dreaming

**Author's Note:**

> I hesitate to refer to Don as Team Dad both for ex-girlfriend-on-the-team-related reasons and also because he’s kind of a disaster at taking care of people sometimes. However! that will not stop me from saying that Alan has probably come to grips with the fact that despite Robin, the team are probably the only grandchildren that he will ever see from his eldest son. (I am not hesitating AT ALL to call David the mom friend, as you will see) 
> 
> Happy holigays, n3 fandom 

Their latest case has had them up and running nonstop for what feels like days but has really only been about 24 hours. They've been running in shifts per Don's well-established protocol for time-sensitive cases that take more than the regular business day; they're all still on call, but they’re split into their typical teams for relatively regular rotations. Liz and Nikki ran leads and made calls for a full eight hours before they passed the baton to Colby and David; they'll be back up again in another eight. The protocol would probably be more effective, she thinks, if they all weren't hyper aware of the fact that Don himself had spent all of the first twenty plus hours they'd put in on this case in and out of the office, working every second of that time. It makes it hard to hand off your work and go home for some food and sleep when you know that you've left your boss behind, still working. Liz the girlfriend hadn't felt comfortable enough balancing her personal relationship and her professional life to bring it up with him the few times that they pulled jobs like this while they were dating; Liz the agent is more comfortable calling him on his shit, but she knows that talking to him about maybe taking a break would just make him feel guilty without actually fixing the way it made his team feel like shit when they come back from their mandated eight hours off to find him wearing the same shirt and slacks as when they left.

So, usually she compromises by just sticking around the offices unless she really can't stand the smell of herself anymore and needs a change and a shower. It's what David did, any time this happened, and in this at least she would follow his lead without question; he's been working with this new-era Don longest of all of them, so he's their resident expert on getting around Don's team rules and protocols. Liz is secretly and embarrassingly pleased when Nikki follows her lead without question when Don officially sends them off for R&R (he doesn't call it that, of course; he doesn't even officially relieve them of duty, he just makes significant eye contact with both of them and jerks his chin in a universal "get out of here" motion that's clear despite the handset he has clamped between his ear and his shoulder.) The team typically gravitates towards the benches just outside of the formal conference room when they're pulling shifts or all-nighters in general, and that's were Liz heads with Nikki on her heels. David had already left them a few bottles of water tucked under one, each one marked carefully with either an "L" and an "N" in Sharpie on their caps. Nikki takes a bottle (one of her bottles, according to David and his marker) and just gives Liz a look as she tilts the top of the bottle towards her. Liz laughs, and almost surprises herself at how cracked her voice sounds. 

"David likes to be thorough."

"David will make a great mom someday, Jesus." She smiles crookedly when Liz laughs again, and it's easy, from there, to settle next to one another on the same bench, to sip at their water and try not to talk too much about the case. The deep, heavy exhaustion helps, the kind that starts eating at Liz's brain as soon as she lets herself come to a full stop and lets some of the tension leak away from her. Nikki could be shit wasted and still never slur a single word, but she's talking slowly and carefully in the way that means she's probably having trouble keeping her eyes open and her thoughts straight. Liz carefully doesn't look at her, but she does let herself feel just how tired she is after a full day of work and then another long, functionally fruitless eight hours after that. She lets herself yawn; she gets comfortable leaning back against the wall behind them; she makes the appropriate tuckered-out noises and listens with a tiny, tiny smile as Nikki starts to make the same noises and as her head starts to nod. 

The first time Liz had caught a case like this with this team, Don had told them all with a stern voice that sounded hilariously like his father's that they were now following "the protocol." David had done then for Liz what Liz was trying to do for Nikki now. Or, he had done the David version, which she now realized was probably tailored for Liz-- David really did like to be thorough. He'd pulled her aside and talked her through it, and told her that even if she stayed here in the office, she still had to at least try and take a break. He'd given her all the good reasons to follow protocol, and then he'd given her a means to still do what Don wanted them to do without having to go home and stare at the ceiling for eight hours worrying about a combination of Don and the case. To date, Liz thinks it might be the kindest thing David has ever done for her; sometimes, she thinks it might have been the kindest thing anyone has done for her in her professional life.

But Nikki and Liz weren't too much alike when it came down to the bones of who they were, which is why Liz takes on the responsibility to do for Nikki what David had done for her; by now, she knows Nikki better than David does. You couldn't really tell Nikki to do anything straight out; she's an arguer by nature and by degree, and sensitive to how people perceive her limitations besides that. It wouldn't have been enough that Nikki was being asked to do this because everyone on the team was being asked to do this; all she would see was Don, on his 23rd hour and still going, telling her that she needed to take a break and come back fresh. You had to ease her into these things.

Liz feels Nikki jerk a little beside her when her head dips too far and jolts her awake; Liz just scoots a little closer and sips her water, casually as anything, still carefully not looking directly at Nikki. The other woman's head begins to nod again.

Liz has never been around many animals, but she recognizes a cat when she sees one, and she knows damn well that you can't order a cat to do anything. You have to come at it a little sideways; if you can make a cat think anything was its idea in the first place, even better.

She draws in a breath and holds very still and Nikki, who had been drooping into Liz's conveniently placed shoulder, finally settles in. Nikki's less of a cat and more of a kitten really, all huge eyes and fluff and razor-sharp claws. She takes up so much room, normally, it feels wrong that her cheek on Liz's shoulder should feel so light, so barely-substantial. Nikki's breathing gets subtly deeper; Liz lets herself breath, too, but only after she's sure she won't shift and startle her bench-mate. Slowly, very slowly, Liz rolls her head against the wall where it had been resting until she can just press her cheek and nose into Nikki's cloud of sweet-smelling curls.

This isn't weird, she thinks distantly. It's just comfort, just a little piece of gentle and soft in a corner of their world. They're supposed to be relaxing, anyway, or at least resting. She's spent her adult life learning to value comfort, but it had been Colby of all people who had showed her that comfort can come from being trusted like this with your partner’s cheek on your shoulder. They hadn't talked about it ever, because Liz had never brought it up and Colby would never be the one to talk about it first. She thinks maybe he’s forgotten all about it, but Liz finds that she can’t.

It had been another long case with a looming deadline, back when she had been newer but not brand new. Don had sent Liz off to find David and Colby, who were about two hours into their off shift—after three hours of Charlie waving a marker at Don as they argued their way through Charlie’s hypothesis, they had a lead, a good lead, and Don needed the whole team to run it down. Liz had cut directly through the conference room at a jog, and when she’d looked off to the side towards their regular benches, she had met Colby's startled eyes over David's bowed head. Both of them had been leaning up against one another on the one bench. Colby had looked freaked for a whole thirty seconds before he jostled his partner awake-- gently enough, though, that David hadn't really startled. It had just been a moment, a fraction of a moment really, but it had put pushy, smug Granger and uptight, sir-yes-sir Sinclair into a new context for her; the rest of the case had gone by in a frenzy, a push-push-push until they had their guy firmly in cuffs and a stack of evidence to nail him with, but she kept what she'd seen in the back of her mind.

Colby Granger and David Sinclair pressed shoulder to shoulder on the same bench, exhausted. David had been asleep, well and truly, and Colby had maybe been getting there, or maybe just keeping watch. The benches weren't long, but they're long enough for a grown man to curl up on or sprawl across for a vertical nap. But that hadn't been what they had needed, and it wasn't what Liz needed now, or Nikki. The offices are so quiet at night-- there's just the white-noise hum of computers and the fluorescent lights in the background. Every other sound seems more subdued, too; she can just hear the sound of Don, still on the phone, the ding of the elevator (probably David and Colby coming back, or maybe Charlie; it's turning in to that kind of case.) This time of night is usually reserved for them, for the major crime unit, whether they're on a case or not; all these night sounds are reserved for them, too, and they're comforting to her now, familiar.

Weird as it is, Liz thinks she understands now what Colby and David had been doing. Forced off shift per their boss’s orders, free to go out and go home to familiar ground again and try to decompress and come back fresh. Despite that, she finds that she doesn't want to pull away from the people that she's spent the better part of a day and a night working alongside just to go and lie down in a bed. She gets it even more now that Nikki's on the team; now she has someone to rest against and who needs to rest against her. It hadn't ever really been that way with other partners on this team or on others; it had never been that way with Don.

_Huh_ , Liz thinks, blinking her eyes open just for a second, making a face. Huh, that's a weird thought, about Nikki and her ex-boyfriend compared like that. But it's a weird thought for a later time; when she closes her eyes again, still faintly disturbed, they don't open again until Colby comes to wake her with a gentle, firm hand against her shoulder.

Liz blinks at him, and gently jostles Nikki awake. In the distance, she can hear Don in the war room; she can hear Charlie, too, and she finds herself grinning and eager at the sound of his excited voice. It's time to go to work. 


End file.
